


Ponds

by sonictrowel



Series: Long Night in the Blue House [57]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Flash Forward, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 23:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11301120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonictrowel/pseuds/sonictrowel
Summary: The Pond-Song household took the summer to settle into their new lives in ’30s New York.





	Ponds

[Earth, 1938]

The Pond-Song household took the summer to settle into their new lives in ’30s New York.  Along with the deed for the house, they’d found bank accounts in their names which, when they visited the bank to investigate, appeared to have been gathering a substantial amount of interest since they were opened when the institution was first founded 115 years ago.

“See? Cheating,” Rory whispered, not looking terribly upset about it.

They planted vegetables and sunflowers in the rooftop garden and watched the sunset there almost every night, with Milly and the Ponds sometimes sharing one of the vintages from the 1910s they’d discovered when they stumbled upon the trapdoor to the wine cellar (definitely Mum’s doing.)  

Athena seemed to be coping as well as could be expected.  And, well, Milly certainly expected a lot from her big sister.  She’d always been the tough one; all sharp wit and humour, no-nonsense and no fear.  Or so it had always seemed, to Milly.  It was strange and hearts-wrenching seeing her this young, already bright and strong but just so small and vulnerable, torn away from everything she’d known.  But she was resilient; no question of that.  Maybe this upheaval of her young life had really made her into the person she was— or, rather, would be.  Well, she had to’ve come away from her displaced childhood with more to show than an American accent. 

Milly knew from the start she wouldn’t have the same relationship to the Ponds that Athena would, but that was alright.  After all, they had the appearance of being about the same age, though in fact she had more than a few decades on them.  Hard enough for a couple in their early thirties to wrap their minds around being grandparents even without the comparative age being scrambled up _that_ much.  But they still treated her like family.

She hadn’t been sure whether to expect it, but as time went on and they all got to know and open up to each other more, she could really properly see that the they were her mum’s parents.  The apple didn’t fall far from that pair of trees, in spite of it all.

And she could clearly see what it meant to them to have Athena.  They’d barely gotten days— barely minutes, for Rory— with their baby.  Their relationship with Mum was certainly precious to them, but it wasn’t that.  She was a friend who they loved as family, and then they found out she _was_ family, but it wasn’t ever going to be the same.

The naps and snacks and baths, play times and story times and toys scattered all over the floor, that was all new.  Rory took to it like a duck to water.  He adored Athena, and doted on her and spoiled her at every opportunity.  Amy clearly loved her too, but in the first few weeks she always let Milly and Rory take the lead with her, keeping a bit of a careful distance, something in her eyes that Milly couldn’t quite discern.

Milly was in the kitchen one evening when she overheard Athena’s voice in the living room— it seemed she’d caught Amy alone.

“Gran,” she said, “can you read me a story?”

“Um,” Amy said, sounding only mildly panicked.  “Yeah... alright, kid.  What story?”  

There was a pause.  Milly moved closer to the doorframe to listen.

 _“Wee Gillis,_  huh?  Published this year and it was already on your shelf?  Looks like someone’s parents have been cheating again.”

Athena giggled.

“Did your Mum and Dad used to read you this one?” 

“Mmhm.”  Her voice sounded so small.

There was another pause.

“You know, Athena...  Me and Rory— your Grandad... we’re gonna be right here for you and Milly.  We’re a team now, all of us, yeah?  But just, don’t you forget, you’ve still got a mum and dad, even if they’re not around.  They love you, and, and they never wanted to let you go— only to keep you safe.  It isn’t fair we get to have you and they don’t.  We love you too, and we’re so glad you’re here.  But they’re never gonna stop loving you and thinkin’ about you every minute, either.  Not ever.”

Milly heard Athena sniffle.

“Hey, c’mere.  You’re going to see them again.  Plenty of time for it.  You’ll get ages with them— you’re special like that.  And until then, you’ve got us, okay?”

Milly risked peeking round the corner, and saw Athena curled up in Amy’s lap on the sofa, nodding into her shirt.  Amy dropped a kiss on her head.

“Good girl.  Now, let’s see about this story, huh?”   

She flipped the book open and cleared her throat while Athena snuggled into her arms, a little smile on her face.  

“Wee Gillis lived in Scotland.  His real name was Alastair Roderic Craigellachie Dalhouise Gowan Donnybristle MacMac, but that took too long to say, so everybody just called him Wee Gillis.”

___

Milly had grown up hearing fond, wistful tales of her grandparents, and always felt a bit left out, being the only one who hadn’t gotten to meet them.  Although, Athena always was a bit reticent when it came to sharing her reminiscences of the Ponds; no doubt because as it turned out, from her perspective, Milly had been right here with her the entire time.  Now _that_ was spoilers.  

It was a bit mad, the way their lives were all knotted up.  Out of her family, Milly had got into the spoilers game late by comparison, after spending her whole sodding life hearing that sing-song catchphrase cut off the end of interesting stories.  She’d never had to sort out how to do it herself until Dad, the Eyebrows one, had shown up at her flat on Calderon Delta, a total mess, and asking her a hundred questions he ought to’ve known not to.  It was a quick learning curve from there. 

But the Ponds were worth the wait.

She and Amy were always laughing together, as Amy told her embarrassing stories about Rory and Dad when he was young, or as Milly attempted with absolutely no success to teach her to cook something that didn’t come from a box.  In July, Rory started up teaching at a nursing college (they’d all been provided psychic paper CVs; his never lied about his experience and education, only when and where he’d obtained it,) and Milly and Amy started taking Athena to the Met and the still-relatively-young MoMA some weekdays, spending hours upon hours looking at the paintings.  It always ended in one of them carrying a sleeping Athena out. 

In ’38 New York, their mixed family painted an unusual picture to your average casual racist.  (Honestly, of _all_ the things that were unusual about it...)  Milly was prepared for it of course, intellectually speaking, but it was quite another thing the first time some twat started shouting at them on the street.  

She was frozen in shock for a second, but anger was quick on its heels.  No sooner had she opened her mouth, though, than Amy shoved the dozing Athena into her arms and stalked over to the man, drawn up to her full height and trembling with righteous fury, and unleashed a screaming tirade of intensely-Scottish profanity that made Milly suddenly, deeply miss her dad.

Athena woke up about in time to see the idiot turning tail as Amy shouted “Yeah, goan, get tae fuck, ya wankstain!”

They got ice cream on the way home.

And Rory… Rory might simply have been the kindest person Milly had ever met.  He was quietly intelligent and strong, with a sense of humour that was deeply sarcastic but never mean, and it seemed his main ambition in life was to help others.  But his devotion to Amy and, now, to his granddaughters, was clearly the driving force of his existence.  His world revolved around them.  

Milly did seem to recall something about Mum referring to him as ‘Mr. Perfect.’

___

“Can I ask you guys a… possibly sensitive question?” Milly asked over breakfast one morning.

“Well, you’ve got to now,” Amy replied. 

Milly smiled.  “So… just, after getting all the stories from your end, with Dad when he was young and rid— okay, never mind, he’s still ridiculous.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Amy snickered.

Milly laughed.  “But so, you find out about Mum, right — was that before or after you found out about, you know, _Mum and Dad?”_  

“I… think we knew about them before he did,” Rory said. 

“Oh, he knew,” Amy replied.  “He’s just an idiot.”

Milly laughed.  “How _weird_ was that?  That must have been weird.” 

“Yes, I would say weird is… a word for it,” Rory said, grimacing.  “But they’d met long before we were in the picture, so it’s not as if we could be upset with him… Even if it _is…_ whatever it is.”

“And I mean, River gets what she wants,” Amy added.  “Let’s be honest.  He didn’t have a chance.”

They all laughed at that.  Athena had been watching and listening silently, but she always looked happy when they talked about Mum and Dad.

“When I try thinking about all the cause and effect, I get a headache,” Rory said, with a little wincing smile.  “There’s too many different beginnings, can’t tell which one comes before another.  There was no point wishing it different, in the end.  I’m happy they got to have each other.  And that we all got to have you girls.” 

Amy watched him fondly from across the table.  Milly smiled down into her coffee cup.

 

 

 

 


End file.
